EMSIE FERREIRA, Cape Town | Sunday 4.00pm
THREE people were killed and 220 injured when buildings collapsed during a storm in the Cape Town suburb of Manenberg early on Sunday, police said.
The raging wind also ripped the roofs off homes and schools in the nearby black townships of Gugulethu and Nyanga where about 2000 people have been left homeless. Two women died when their houses in different parts of Manenberg caved in on top of them, police spokesman Captain Jacques Wiese said. It is not clear how the third person died.
Cape Town city council spokeswoman Leonora da Souza-Zilwa said there have been unconfirmed reports that several more people have died, with some sources putting the death toll at seven.
She said about 120 people were seriously injured by falling debris when walls and roofs collapsed while another 100 sustained minor injuries. Police said rescue teams are searching through the rubble looking for more injured people. “We are trying to do a block by block search. It is a slow process,” Wiese said. Apart from the houses, four blocks of flats have been damaged and 40 apartments have been “totally gutted” by the strong north-westerly wind which was “like a tornado” when it hit, he said.
Da Souza-Zilwa said the storm swept off the Atlantic Ocean and “indiscriminately destroyed” private homes, council properties and shacks in a one-kilometre-long stretch of Manenberg. Stunned residents described seeing a “big ball of light” early on Sunday accompanied by “flashing thunder”.
Basil Searle, whose family escaped injury, said: “I just saw a light and (heard) a terrible shaking sound. The glass began to break… I just rushed for the children.” Western Cape African National Congress leader Ebrahim Rasool — one of the politicians who hastened to the scene — said hospitals in the area are crammed with people who sustained injuries in the storm.–AFP